The Hero King

by Rick Shelley

  My memories of my father, my predecessor as Hero of Varay, and my great-grandfather Pregel, my predecessor as king, were dimmer, vaguer, two-dimensional, fleeting. I saw them laid out in the crypt of Castle Basil, about to be slipped into their niches along the wall and capped over with marble.

  Castle Basil. Basil Rock. The crypt. The town. Cayenne, Chicago, Louisville.

  I fell through layer after layer of memory, through many repetitions of the strongest recollections, the tightest bonds. Each repeat painted the scene in stronger colors, more vivid, more real, cementing the past to the present, extruding it toward the future.

  If there was a future.

  Vaguely, gradually, I became aware of memories beyond the memories, a widening net of poorly understood rumor and secondhand histories coming from the people I recalled most strongly, tying me to people and places I had never seen myself. There was a statue of the Brothers Grimm. I had seen photographs of it, but now I was seeing the real thing, and I knew, for the first time, that it stood in Marketplatz in some town called Hanau, in Germany. I had never been to Germany.

  And, weakest of all, I felt synaptic vibrations of yet more distant connections, a web reaching out even to the stars.

  “History is a lie that most people agree on.”

  “We recreate our past every minute of every day. Some people do it more effectively than others.”

  “He died because he could only imagine one reality.”

  And then, finally, I knew what I was doing, what I had yet to do, what the entire point of this vaginal odyssey was. As if to match this sudden inner light of revelation, there was outer light. I seemed to be inside a tight sac, a moving point of ivory luminescence, surrounded by a horde of similar vehicles, each of them containing a replica of me, wrapped closely in a helical structure I remembered from science classes. Many of those other mes were looking at the me I was looking out of. Repeatedly, I met my own gaze as those other eyes turned to meet mine.

  The seed. The sperm. Life offered.

  Ahead, below, I could see myriad larger blobs of light, iridescent bubbles, each containing a potential universe, each spreading across the requisite billions of light-years.

  The seed. The eggs. Life accepted.

  One of me would have to penetrate one of the countless possible universes waiting there in the infinite womb. Each of them was different, with its own past and future, its own rules. We would unite and become one. The future that resulted would draw its parameters, its reality, from both of us, the Great Earth Mother and me. There were possibilities within possibilities. All of the images of myself that I could see in the flood around me were actually ME, as fully as I was. Split personality? That only touches the edge of the reality. I felt my individuality, but I also felt the union of us all.

  It might not be me who created the new universe, but it would still be ME. Did I worry that one of those other selfs would succeed instead of the self I was most aware of? Yes, but in a subtle, detached way. There was just too much going on for me to focus on that particular question.

  “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”

  Oh yeah?

  I knew, realized, decided, that I needed to force as much of me as I could on the resulting cosmological genes. The crapshoot of heredity: I had to try to load the dice if my memories were to prove dominant over chance, over the efforts of the Great Earth Mother to give birth to a universe in her image.

  The Great Earth Mother and the Hero of Varay are pleased to announce the birth of their …

  Take one from column A and one from column B.

  Cheat if you have to.

  I concentrated on Joy and our shared memories. She was my anchor. I could see her, touch her, get inside her head the way I had gotten inside the Great Earth Mother’s womb. Womb? Do people still use that word? It did pop into my mind. Joy. I saw her there with me, beautiful, pregnant, warm, wonderful. In a very real way, she was the center of my universe—and I was delighted and relieved to have her there.

  I saw Aaron and Parthet chanting their magics, moving in a tight circle around Joy and me, part of the helical structure that held me. Aaron and Parthet, a strange pair. Uncle Parthet, Uncle Parker: he was a half-baked wizard if ever there was one, but he came through when he could. Maybe if he could see better, remember better. And Aaron now: there was a constant strength emanating from him, and not just as a result of his magics. He was an enigma with less past than he needed. The streak of elvish white down the side of his face seemed appropriate, necessary. Maybe he would disagree. I wasn’t sure.

  Baron Kardeen and Lesh were two more anchors in my hurricane, orbiting not far beyond Parthet and Aaron. Kardeen and Lesh were solid men who did their duty and still had room for friendship.

  My mother was there in the group as well, but I couldn’t put much thought to her yet. There were still the barriers of memory, of resentment for the years of deception.

  Annick was there too, farther out in the electron web around me, half elf herself, granddaughter of the Elflord of Xayber, burning with hatred for all that came from Fairy. That was a waste, draining her of so much that she could be.

  Beyond the inner circle, a growing sea of faces and names, people I knew in Varay and beyond, on the other side of nothingness, back in the world that was. Names and faces, little bits of poorly remembered data clouded around me. Strangers stood and swam around and around, outward and outward in concentric spheres around the core.

  Castle Basil, the center of Varay. Basil Rock, supposedly the hub of the universe.

  The Congregation of Heroes and the genealogical tree of kings.

  And dragons. “If we have to have dragons, at least give us useful dragons, like on Pern.”

  Fact and fancy. Science and magic. Myth and history. Tomorrow and yesterday. Now and then.

  Oh say can you see…?

  A new world, a new universe.

  How about a minor correction to physics? Let’s make nuclear explosions impossible, without subtracting any other use of the equations. Suns are possible. Bombs are out. It violates natural law? Hell, we’re writing a new law, adding an exception, a footnote that invalidates nuclear weaponry without deleting any of the necessary uses of nuclear energy. E=mc2, except in bombs.

  Little green men and bug-eyed monsters in the merry month of May. Flying saucers and starships that travel instantly between the stars. People, people everywhere … and assorted other beings. Hell, let’s even make room for Alf.

  Make Room, Make Room.

  “It’s My Party.”

  This Immortal rides to Amber and finds Lazarus Long lecturing my heroes. Bogey and the Duke chain-smoke and argue into the night while quarts of booze go by the wayside. Errol Flynn checks out his new Robin Hood duds in a mirror, preening and stroking his mustache. In the imperial observatory, Hari Seldon ties together The City and the Stars. Detour signs are put up at the on-ramp to The Glory Road. No hobbits served, please, “Never on Sunday.”

  Honest car salesmen. Commercials and politicians that tell the truth. We’ll make that a natural law.

  There’s no room for broccoli or cauliflower in my world. Asparagus is a prescription hallucinogenic, strictly for medicinal purposes. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall …” Nothing you eat or drink can hurt you. doesn’t it say something like that in the Bible?

  What the world needs now is … laughter—all of the laughter it can get. Laughter is immortal. Those who give it to us should be too. Jack Benny for President. He can balance the federal budget if anyone can.

  If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

  While we’re wishing, how about elves who are cute little creatures who clean kitchens and help shoemakers and sing cheery little songs around campfires in the wild? Magic for convenience—good, useful sorts of magic, not the evil spells of witches and warlocks.

  If I Ruled the World.

  If I’m not as loony as I think I am, maybe I’ve gone one better than that.


  Gravity getting you down? We’ll have to do something about that, provide a way for people to nullify gravity when they need to.

  Frog went a courtin’ …

  As long as he didn’t catch a disease in the process. All sex should be safe sex. And while we’re at it, let’s do away with all these limits on how often a guy can perform in a night.

  “Those Were the Days.” My friends.

  Joy. Always Joy, my love, my partner—always. Forever is a long, long time.

  A burning fever. What have I forgotten? There’s so much that has to go in that I have to have forgotten a lot, maybe some of it important. If I had my druthers …

  I guess I’ll have to try a simple et cetera. Let’s include everything I would have thought of if I had the time to think of it and sort it all out.

  My World. We’ll make it a beautiful place. I deserve it. Everybody deserves it.

  The bubble universes-in-waiting are closer now. The ultimate moment of truth, the moment of ultimate truth, will come soon, perhaps too soon. Some of the bubbles have popped, their potential wasted, spilled into the void. Others are off behind, above me now, out of reach, no longer possible. How will I know which of the remaining choices is the right one?

  The options decrease with every thought.

  Time. I can feel it now, a living, breathing entity. I can sense the way it is fluttering.

  That one! Straight ahead, below. It calls to me, beckons, pulls, demands me. I straighten out my body, extend my arms like a diver ready to enter the water … and I hold my breath as I plunge toward it.

  There is a quick instant of resistance. Then I penetrate the outer membrane. The resistance ends but it rips apart the sheath that protects me. I am caught up in the explosions of creation. The helical strands around me are ripped apart and cast into the maelstrom.

  Goodbye.

  19

  After the Ball

  I hear the screams of the multitudes, tortured souls praying for release. I know the torments of the damned, the weighing of the scales of justice. There is a thumb on the scale. It lifts itself off—there is no hand attached to it—and waggles a couple of times. This is what you have to compete with.

  A uniform gray, boundless in every direction. The Earth was without form, and void. No time. No space. No energy. No matter.

  No matter.

  Duration where there is no time, in a place where there are no dimensions. I think that I think, therefore, I think that I am.

  But I am not.

  Sound in a vacuum, plodding, regular, assaults ears that do not exist and echoes in a mind that has neither substance nor form.

  I am tired to the death, but there can be no death where there is no life. I have no conscious thoughts because there is no such thing as consciousness in this eternal gray limbo.

  But I am aware.

  I am aware that there is no awareness, nothing to be aware of.

  The screams of the multitudes. The memories of the dead. Sound in silence. There is nothing. There has never been anything. There has never been nothing.

  No past, no present: it will always be the same.

  * * *

  Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate …

  Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater …

  Cinderella. Glass slippers. Midnight.

  While the mice are away, the cat will starve.

  No, it can always eat the bats in the belfry.

  They all left to drink the blood in Transylvania. The Count is throwing a dinner. The main course is bat batter.

  Batter up!

  “Once a king, always a king, but once a knight is enough.”

  A Hero Ain’t Nothing But a Sandwich.

  The Earl of Sandwich and the Marquis of Queensberry request the honor of your presence at high tea, to be served in Madison Square Garden, precisely at the count of eight, nine, ten, you’re out.

  Out: There is no in.

  There is no room in the inn.

  Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall …

  “Hello, Walls.”

  “Hello, Goodbye.”

  Goodbye? I said that, didn’t I?

  There is only the light gray in every direction, the gray of a winter sky when snow is threatening. I look around. I look up and down. There is no texture to the gray, no hint of its dimensions. Like me, the gray simply is, without definition.

  I am is a major step forward. That simple awareness is the result of eons of chance, and of chance associations and movements. It takes even longer for me to realize that I am is not an end result but merely a signpost along the way. I cannot see the end result. I cannot imagine it yet. I’m not sure what it will look like, how I will recognize it, what it will be … what it will be … what it will be.

  I am!

  Snowballs have a chance in Hell,

  But only if they ring the bell.

  “Ding dong bell,

  “Pussy’s in the well.”

  Well, well, well.

  Who was Pussy banging?

  And is that his tail

  By which I see him hanging?

  Pale Gray for Guilt. Once upon a Mattress. Two for the Road. Three Balls in the Fountain.

  “Ball four. Take your base.”

  “Take Me out to the Ballpark.”

  Barefoot in the Park.

  “Park it here.”

  “Oh, Johnny.”

  “Heeeeere’s Johnny.”

  “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again.”

  “Where’s the john? I’ve got to go.”

  Go directly to Jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect …

  Butterflies?

  Butterflies Are Free.

  Born Free.

  Born to Boogie, Bogey.

  “Born to Be Wild.”

  I am. I am!

  Says who?

  Says me.

  How do you know?

  “The Shadow Knows.”

  Know thyself.

  I’ve heard that.

  I look directly down my front and notice several things that I hadn’t seen before, whenever “before” was. I appear to be fully dressed: mail shirt, jeans, boots, straps across my chest to hold the swords I can feel on my back, part of a saddle under me, a horse under the saddle—Electrum. I reach down and forward to pat his neck. “Good boy,” I tell him. He snorts an answer. His hoofs plod on through the gray, clopping softly on an indistinguishable surface.

  I look around me. Geezer plods behind Electrum and

  me, a leather line running from his bridle to the pommel of my saddle. Geezer blinks at me, a gesture of recognition. He looks put-upon, which isn’t unusual, but the load on his back is less than it was before.

  The thought I’m alive surprises me so much that my feet almost slip out of the stirrups, but I don’t know why that thought should be such a shock. There are vast blank areas in my mind, as gray as the vista around me. The one seems to be a reflection of the other and I can’t guess which is the primary and which is the reflection. My horses, their loads, and I provide the only form in this dimensionless universe, and even we lack color yet. We are merely darker shades of gray than the nothingness across which we are riding, a classic movie that Ted Turner never reached with his Crayolas.

  “Are we going the right way?” I ask, but not only is there no answer, the question appears to be meaningless, without form.

  “Jack and Jill went up the hill,”

  There are no hills here, or valleys.

  “To fetch a pail of water.”

  I wonder how much water we have left.

  “Jack fell down and broke his crown.”

  Varay has no crown.

  Varay. The word triggered first a strong flood of emotion—longing, distaste, fear, affection—all mixed together; then a series of memories, thoughts that I had to speak into the void.

  “I am Gil Tyner, Hero King of Varay. My wife is named Joy; my wife, my queen. My mother is Avedell Tyner, granddaughter of Pregel, my predecessor as king, widow of Carl
Tyner, my predecessor as Hero.”

  Each memory triggered another series of associations, the memories rippling outward, increasing, multiplying, filling many of the blank spaces in my mind. I pulled on the reins. Electrum halted. Behind us, Geezer stopped when we did.

  “I remember Varay,” I said, and even the odors of castle and countryside seemed to return in a sudden deluge of sensation. But there was still only the gray void around me.

  No, there was a difference, a change. Color had returned to me, to my horses, their gear, and the things they carried. We had become a bright smear at the center of the infinite gray. We had to be the center; there was no other color anywhere in sight.

  “I’m alive,” I said, though I knew that I couldn’t prove it, except possibly to my horses.

  I’m alive.

  I looked back the way we had come: featureless gray. That way lay madness.

  I looked forward at a similar featureless gray. I had no idea what lay there, if anything.

  I looked down, at still more of the same gray, around and beneath the hoofs of Electrum. I wondered what would happen to me if I dismounted. Just because the gray supported my horses, there was no reason to believe that it would support me. Since I was going to have to find out sooner or later, I opted for sooner.

  The gray supported me. There was a firm surface beneath my feet, though I couldn’t distinguish it. It was firm, with no give, even when I stamped and jumped up and down. It held me, but I couldn’t really touch it.

  “There doesn’t seem to be any grass around,” I said, holding Electrum’s bridle and stroking the blaze on his face. “I think there are some fresh veggies back on Geezer. At least they were fresh when we left Basil. We’ll all have to make do for now.” There was no way to heat water to cook my survival rations, and they’re virtually inedible cold … though I would have to eat them anyway. “And I’ll see how much water is left too,” I added.

  I walked back to Geezer, spent a moment talking to him, and then I started sorting through the packs he carried. It was a time-consuming process, so some sort of time was running in this place that wasn’t a place. I found that I didn’t remember where the various items had been stowed. Mostly, I wasn’t even sure what was in the packs. And I was distracted while I searched. Memories were still trying to force themselves to the front of my mind, trying to claim my attention, but I just let them flow through and pass into the web of my mind. There was no point in dwelling on recollections. They could only bring pain at the moment. My only immediate curiosity was directed toward learning what Electrum, Geezer, and I had to eat and drink. That occupied me fully.